SV Racing with KX’s Josh Cook took a race win and David Pittard a podium finish to extend their respective championship leads in the Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup and Ginetta GT4 Supercup during a stormy Saturday at Oulton Park (7 June).
UK Clio Cup points leader Cook concluded Friday’s first practice session with the second fastest time, coming within eight hundredths of the best time set by multiple Clio Cup Chanpion, Paul Rivett.
An electrical fault prevented Ash Hand from taking part in Friday practice and the Nuneaton racer was subsequently on the back foot going into qualifying and the weekend’s first race (Round 7) on Saturday (7 June).
Heavy thundery downpours saturated the circuit first thing on Saturday morning but, while the hardy spectators sheltered under umbrellas, there was no hiding place for the UK Clio Cup runners on the slick Oulton Park circuit.
With light, persistent rain falling, the consensus was that the best times were likely to come in the initial stages of qualifying and an early flurry of activity saw Cook go second fastest.
The rain intensified and a roll for Team Pyro’s Mike Bushell demonstrated how treacherous conditions were becoming, although the fight for pole position would continue heating up as drivers tested the limits of adhesion by ramping up the bravery.
After a brief red-flag stoppage, the times tumbled. Cook went quicker on two consecutive laps to briefly hold pole, but a ballsy performance from Ant Whorton-Eales saw him snatch the initiative and break the 2m04s barrier.
The Lichfield driver left the rest of the field standing in his spray, but hard-charging James Colburn denied SVR of a front-row lockout, with Cook ending up third, Alex Morgan fifth and Hand down in 12th.
Whorton-Eales bolted from pole position and had a clear lead as the field converged on Old Hall corner for the first time, while Cook, Morgan and Hand also used supreme starts to inherit third, fourth and seventh places respectively.
Hand was an unfortunate casualty of the opening-lap melee, as his race ended in the Armco down ‘the Avenue’ and caused the one and only Safety Car intervention of the race.
At the restart, Whorton-Eales dipped his left-rear onto the still sodden grass at the exit of Old Hall and span into the infield, delaying Pattison and opening the door for an opportunistic Cook to snatch the initiative.
The Bristol racer stretched his legs out front and stabilised the gap to second-placed Pattison at half a second to take his third race win of the season and extend his championship advantage.
“I got a really good start to get up to third place, then the Safety Car came out, closing the gap that I had already developed over fourth place,” said Cook. “My teammate Ant (Whorton-Eales) then span out of the lead at the restart – he put a wheel on the grass and lost it, which then delayed Lee Pattison. I managed to take advantage of that and slip by him and from then on it was all about managing the gap. It was really hard because he was quick and tried pressurising me into a mistake. It’s a great haul of championship points and I’m looking forward totomorrow.”
Fellow KX Akademy recruit Morgan would ultimately lose the final podium place to Bushell on lap nine, while Whorton-Eales dragged his damaged Clio back inside the top ten and was within striking distance of ninth-placed Modell on the final lap.
Ginetta GT4 Supercup FP1 was all too brief for Pittard, who littered his car with gravel after just one lap of the Oulton Park International circuit.
The Letchworth Garden City resident recovered well in second practice and set a 1m41.774s to come within six tenths of United Autosport’s Carl Breeze, despite struggling to knit together strong sector times while learning the lay of the land in his KX-backed G55.
His search for the optimal setup continued in the day’s third and final practice session and he tried three very different solutions before finding a suitable compromise, which he carried into Saturday’s wet qualifying (7 June).
Conditions on Saturday morning were dramatically different to free practice and the starting order was decided by the smallest of margins during a heavily truncated session, Pitted going fifth quickest after losing time due to making a slight unforced error.
A superb start from row three of the grid propelled Pittard into third position on the run to Old Hall, at the expense of Tom Oliphant and Jamie Orton.
The gap between race leader Charlie Robertson and Carl Breeze grew significantly on lap two, while Pittard’s deficit to the United Autosport driver fluctuated in the initial stages.
However, the Hertfordshire-based racer maintained position on the tight and undulating Oulton Park circuit to achieve his fourth consecutive podium finish and take the championship initiative in the process.
“The weather has been a bit of a rollercoaster and I thought they should have red-flagged this morning’s session because it was so wet,” said Pittard. “Still, I managed to qualify P5 later in the day, some eight tenths off pole. I lost that time through a mistake, but starting fifth from the inside of the grid wasn’t the end of the world and the circuit had dried-out for the race. I wanted it to be wet because Oulton Park is notoriously hard for overtaking, but I got a mega start from fifth to third and, after the first corner, I pretty much knew that’s how we would finish. I didn’t have the pace to challenge for first and second places and simply brought the car home to take the lead in the championship. You can’t ask for anymore than that!”
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